Day: April 25, 2017

Chuck Bettis has been living and working in New York City since 2002. Originally from the DC, he grew up going to hardcore shows, integrating himself into the underground world of DIY shows and home recordings. His primary instruments are electronics and throat and he has a long history of collaboration with artists like Mick Barr, Matmos, Ikue Mori and Mike Pride. On today’s show we go back to Chuck’s early days in DC to how he became a member of NYC’s downtown scene to how he began making music with laptops to his newest project with Brandon Seabrook. This is a great talk with one of the sweetest musicians around.

Composer Daniel Corral is excited to announce a release show on May 6 at Automata in Los Angeles for his new album Refractions, out May 5 on Populist Records. Refractions is a 45-minute electro-acoustic chamber piece that expands on Corral’s 10 years of exploring the sonic and sculptural possibilities of music boxes. On May 6, Refractions will be performed live by guitarist Jeremy Kerner, the Koan Quartet, and Corral. There will also be a duo set of improvisations and songs based on Persian Mugam and Arabic Maqamat by Rahman Baranghoori (vocals/violin) and Timothy Maloof (violin).

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Created and curated by Robin Bell, a visual media artist and activist with deep roots in the community, Directed Actions is a live video series connecting participants on issues and solution-oriented action. Launched initially as a response to the Trump Inauguration, it is an ongoing series around social justice issues. The series aims to highlight dynamic work as inspiration and anchor for continued community building. Each night highlights different artists in an intimate and casual setting for an exchange and dialogue around current ground-breaking models for work at the intersection of activism and the arts.

May 3rd will feature conversations with:

Nadine Bloch, an innovative artist, nonviolent practitioner, political organizer, direct-action trainer, and puppetista, who combines the principles and strategies of nonviolent civil disobedience with creative use of the arts in cultural resistance and public protest.

Nikolas Schiller, a Cannabis Activist and a digital map artist who lives in Washington, DC. He is primarily known for developing Geospatial Art, which is the name he has given to his collection of abstract fantasy maps created from kaleidoscopic aerial photographs. He is the Co-Founder of DCMJ, and Co-Author of Initiative 71.

Live music by Ted Zook. Ted Zook is primarily a nylon-string guitarist, but also plays basscello through digital signal processors and a variety of digitally-processed, non-traditional analog instruments such as bowls, rainsticks, slidewhistle, whistle-flutes, oceanharp, etc. He began his study of the guitar in Chile and Uruguay (the latter under the guidance of Luis Acosta), and continued upon his return to the U.S. in the early 1960s under Sophocles Papas (classical guitar), Frank Mullen (jazz guitar). He more recently studied improvisation under the mentorship of David Darling. Currently, Ted regularly plays experimental music in the Baltimore/Washington DC area.

Live video installation and curation by Robin Bell. Cuisine by Chef Sora.

Support for Directed Actions: Live Film Series has been provided by the Metabolic Studio, a direct charitable activity of the Annenberg Foundation.

The event starts at 7:30; admission is $10. Trinidad Theatre is located at 1358 Florida Ave NE Washington, DC.

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The music and concepts aren’t nearly as stuffy as the name. Delia Derbyshire was the legendary electronic artist at the BBC’s Radiophonic Workshop and a creator of the “Doctor Who Theme.” Her electronic music turned on a generation, among them, Garry Hughes of Bombay Dub Orchestra and Harvey Jones. As the Delia Derbyshire Appreciation Society, they create a deep, beatless ambient music. They talk about electronic passions from Derbyshire to Eno in the Echoes Podcast.

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What would Sun Ra think? How might he react, that is, if he were told that the cosmic jazz machine he built—the Sun Ra Arkestra—was still announcing new tour dates in the distant year of 2017? Raised eyebrows, perhaps, or more likely an inscrutable half-smirk. Here in the future, however, it is not so surprising that audiences will turn out for a night of spiritual jazz presided over by Marshall Allen, the Arkestra’s longtime player of saxophone and Electronic Valve Instrument. After all, in the year following the passing of star-children Maurice White and David Bowie, the Arkestra’s sonic happenings might represent a ticket-buyer’s last chance to be a part of the utopian musical “equation” that influenced both the pop world and the counterculture in the 1970s. As morbid as it might sound, Arkestra shows are like watching a light show produced by the supernova of a long-dead star.

What’s most surprising is not that Arkestra shows still feel contemporary, but how the Arkestrian approach to jazz is healthier than it has been in decades. Pioneers like Allen and Pharoah Sanders are not only finding collaborators and kindred souls in the next generation to join them onstage—they’re damn near outnumbered by them. The range of artists and collectives boldly waving high the freak flag of cosmic jazz is surprisingly broad in 2017, and that’s not even counting Afrofuturist pop modeled on the Arkestra more in concept than in actual frequencies. Without further preamble, find below a quick lookbook of nine artists each carrying the torch for cosmic jazz in their own ways, from time-defying cross-generational holdouts like Idris Ackamoor to newer mutants like Morgan Craft and Hypnotic Brass Ensemble.